Okay, so your résumé is complete. Now what? Become an expert in interviewing yourself!

Read your résumé from top to bottom and bottom to top to familiarize yourself with every line on it. The goal is to become completely comfortable walking someone through your chronological background, either briefly or in detail. Anything on your résumé is fair game for a question during an interview. Don’t try to second-guess which items will catch an interviewer’s attention. Certain points may stand out to one interviewer, while others will appeal to another.

Among other things, be sure to review:

• details to any responsibility included
• result of any project listed
• background to any award or designation mentioned.

You may find it helpful to have this additional information written out in a notebook to review before every interview.

Why all this preparation? If you think of your résumé as a marketing document for you as a job applicant, be prepared to provide the back-up detail to any point highlighted in your “advertisement.” The mere impression of false or misleading advertising is one of the quickest ways for an interview to go downhill quickly.